The European Women’s Lobby (EWL) is one of the key actors in the EU gender equality policy field. Claiming to represent 2000 women’s organizations across Europe, the EWL is regularly consulted by the European Commission and the European Parliament for its “gender expertise” (Cullen 2020; Seibicke 2019; Strid 2009), being legitimized and financially supported by the Commission. However, other transnational civil society organizations representing women also organize at the EU level, including ethnic minority women, migrant women, disabled women, religious women and women within various professions. The EWL’s position has also been questioned by conservative women (Rolandsen Agustín 2012). Moreover, women’s organizations are not the only ones active in this “field of gender”; LGBTQ, human rights, SRHR organizations and others also participate, making it a diverse and contentious field. This paper investigates how the elite position of the EWL is challenged by other civil society actors and by ideological differences and contentious issues, conceptually approaching this gender field as a “field of contention” (Crossley 2006). Given that civil society organizations mainly have discursive power, the analysis focuses on how they participate in a discursive space and struggle in which they try to produce meaning and contest who the gender experts are. We explore this question through the contentious cases of transgender issues, prostitution/sex work, and how to represent such a diverse group. The analysis is based on interviews with organization representatives and experts as well as textual sources.